


Because

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Doctor/Patient, Feelings Realization, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Temporary Character Death, Twins, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29383689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: The real reason Dr. Harry Carlyle chose to send Lexi to the Tempest rather than stick with the original plan.
Relationships: Harry Carlyle/Male Ryder | Scott
Kudos: 1





	Because

**BECAUSE**

* * *

It wasn’t until Scott was down with Alec yelling his name over comms that Harry realized the clawing fear inside his chest stemmed not from what he heard Alec doing to remedy his son’s broken helmet. It wasn’t because, in general, Habitat 7 had gone to hell in a greased-up hand basket. It wasn’t because he knew without question within seconds that Alec Ryder was going to die on the very first planet he’d visited in the Andromeda galaxy.

It was because in the aftermath, he lost Scott four times trying to get him from where he’d fallen to the shuttle. It was because he lost Scott three more times aboard the shuttle. It was because he lost Scott three times after that aboard _Hyperion_ until the brilliant suggestion to move him to SAM Node finally stabilized him permanently.

It was…because.

Because the boy had grown into a man over the past twenty years that he’d known him. Because the man was beautiful inside and out, just unsure enough to make him endearing and yet just Ryder enough that you never questioned his integrity, leadership and skill.

Because somewhere between the closely-held memory of holding a little boy to his chest and getting a sloppy kiss as he handed him an ice cream cone during one of his many Citadel outings with the twins, and the time that he sat at Scott’s bedside in SAM Node before he awoke fully, Harry wanted another kiss, only this time from a grown man…and not necessarily on his cheek.

He swallowed hard as he watched Scott sleeping off the effects of SAM’s unusual bonding with him. SAM thankfully kept his silence to allow the new Pathfinder as much rest as he could get before responsibility inevitably delivered him into chaos. And Harry felt a want deep inside him. An ache to be touched, acknowledged, held. But not just by anyone.

Scott would probably never remember, but during the worst times, when pain overrode both decorum and logical thought, it was Harry he had clung to in spite of having multiple doctors and nurses surrounding him trying to make him feel better. Harry’s hands he flailed for, refusing to settle if Lexi grabbed them or a nurse grabbed them. It had to be Harry.

The doctor tried to tell himself it was because of the familiarity. The history between Harry and the Ryders. The fact that now that his father was so unceremoniously ripped from his life left only Sara and Harry who’d known him as long or just about, in Harry’s case. And with Sara down for the count, Harry was literally all Scott had left.

He would become a crutch, he knew. A hindrance. Scott needed to fly on his own, or so Harry convinced himself. And he was…having thoughts that any physician would describe as inappropriate at best, downright unethical at worst. Yet still he held Scott’s hands. During times when no one was around, he even kissed his knuckles once or twice, drawing a whimper and squeeze in response each time, Scott’s face turning toward him even as his eyes darted round beneath his eyelids, deeply asleep.

Had whispered Scott’s name, telling him all the ways he deserved this, was right for it. Praising him. Building him up subconsciously as best he could for what was going to be a difficult pressure-cooker of a ride. As brilliant and accomplished as Scott was at the tender age of twenty-two, forty-four-year old Harry could not displace the fear he’d felt watching Scott die over and over and over again under his care. The desire for the person Scott had become and would evolve into as a result of this tragedy. The need he had to be near him. The very real emotion of a kind of love that wasn’t just coming from someone who’d known you for so long that, when it reared its head, both hurt like hell and soothed his soul.

As long as Scott stayed alive out there Pathfinding, Harry would see him, especially considering how much Scott desperately sat by his twin sister’s bedside praying for her to awaken, talking to her, even singing to her in a soft way that simultaneously lifted Harry’s spirits for its haunting beauty and broke his very soul for how it would never be directed at him.

And so when the time came for Scott to be considered healthy and whole enough to own the _Tempest_ and his new job duties, Harry didn’t even have the balls to tell him face-to-face that he wouldn’t be seeing him aboard the ship. The excuse: age. Habitat 7 had given him every reasonable justification he needed.

But the truth? Was worse.

Somewhere along the line more than six hundred years ago, Harry Carlyle had fallen for Scott Ryder. He knew it would be sheer torture to be on-ship seeing him day in and day out, and having to be physically present and know every detail every time he threw himself into danger. He knew that if he spent that much time circling Scott so closely, he would inevitably allow himself to drift a little _too_ close.

At which time they would most likely combust. Explode. Become their own Black Hole. Or, Scott would be so disgusted, uninterested and in no way approving of Harry’s newly-realized feelings, that things would become awkward and he’d lose their close bond and the trust that was so essential out here in Andromeda, between a doctor and his twin patients.

So Lexi became the Pathfinder’s personal physician.

And when Scott asked Harry via vidcom from Eos some two weeks later, why he hadn’t told Scott himself but instead had left it to the Asari to explain rather awkwardly aboard _Tempest_ , Harry hesitated.

And when Scott whispered, “I like Lexi okay, but…” Harry should not have asked, “But what?” And Scott should not have replied, “I wish it was you here with me.” And Harry should not have said, “It…still could be.”

Why?

Because. Just because.

**Author's Note:**

> I used both canon compliant and not canon compliant tags as this short snippet is left ambiguous enough at the end that if Harry still doesn't join the Tempest crew, it'd look canon, but if he chooses instead to do so, then it would become non-canon. So it's more about what might happen in the aftermath than what happens in the story itself. :-)


End file.
